About us

Convenor Conflict Management is a small firm with a disproportionate influence. Our focus is on the systems and structures by which conflict is managed and communities engage with the environment.

We are particularly interested in cutting-edge issues and problems. We specialize in those that involve many players, numerous sources of practical wisdom, and competing academic disciplines. We draw on decades of our own, real-world, experience in thousands of disputes, and in multiple outreach initiatives and teaching opportunities. We put together and manage effective, multidisciplinary and culturally diverse teams, including for multinational projects. It is a hallmark of our work to assemble the right people for each project, often from many fields of expertise and from multiple cultures. ​

​Chris Honeyman (Managing Partner) has served as a consultant to numerous academic and practical conflict resolution programs in the U.S. and abroad, and as a mediator, arbitrator and in other neutral capacities in more than 2,000 disputes since the 1970s. He has served since 2003 as co-director of the Canon of Negotiation Initiative, an effort to find the essential sources of understanding of negotiation among more than 30 contributing fields, and to make them understandable and coherent to people with other specialties. From 2007-2013 he served as co-director of Rethinking Negotiation Teaching, a major project to revamp the content and methods of negotiation teaching worldwide. From 2004-2009 he served as lead external consultant to ADR Center (Rome), the largest dispute resolution firm in continental Europe, with a particular focus on design of ADR Center's multinational projects in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. From 2004-2008 he served as evaluator to a team of six U.S. and European law schools, funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the E.U.'s equivalent agency to design better methods of aligning American and European teaching of negotiation and other forms of ADR. And from 1990-2006 he was director of an extensive succession of Hewlett Foundation-funded research-and-development programs, of national or international scale, including Broad Field (2002-2005), Theory to Practice (1997-2002) and the Test Design Project (1990-1995.) Chris is co-editor of the new two-volume Negotiator's Desk Reference (2017, DRI Press), the four-volume Rethinking Negotiation Teaching series (DRI Press 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013) and The Negotiator's Fieldbook (ABA 2006.) He is also author or co-author of more than 100 published articles, book chapters and monographs on dispute resolution ideas, infrastructure, quality control and ethics. He has held a variety of committee and advisory roles for the ABA and other organizations.

​Elaine Andrews (Principal) specializes in community based education about the environment, a field that is an essential complement to the prevention and reduction of environmental conflict. From 2006 to 2011 Elaine served as Director of the University of Wisconsin's Environmental Resources Center, where she supervised programming and funding for approximately 55 staff members who focus on the human dimensions of environmental management. Over decades of experience she has developed, funded, managed and evaluated education programs and resources for numerous federal and state agencies and nonprofit organizations, as well as for Wisconsin state and county leaders. In her personal work and in her many publications, Elaine focuses on environmental management and community-based education for adults, including youth leaders. She has served as Principal Investigator for over 30 national or multi-state projects, on behalf of USDA Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service; USDA Forest Service; U.S. Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; and the National Environmental Education & Training Foundation, among others. She has also served on the U.S. EPA National Environmental Education Advisory Council, including a term as Chair (2007–2009); as a Trustee of the National Environmental Education Foundation (2004–2010); as President (2001) and Executive Director (2002-2003) of the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE); and as an officer of the board of The Entomological Foundation (2004–2008). Her private practice focuses on community & environment consulting, providing education advice and developing resources for short-term contract projects.

​Other Colleagues are numerous but not permanent. Even a quick look at the Conflict Management Projects and Publications pages will reveal a long list of partners and associates, many of whom have worked with us on multiple projects over years, and in some cases decades. Among them are some of the best-known and most highly-regarded professionals in our fields worldwide. (We invite discussion as to which combination of our colleagues might be best for a new project.) Detailed lists of partners and co-authors for Community & Environment projects are listed on the individual project pages or in PDFs of their publications.